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Tuesday, April 16, 2013

NST.com: Hooked on the dark mind by Subhadra Devan

Hugh Dancy talks about his intense, almost telepathic role in new television series Hannibal, writes Subhadra Devan

BEFORE
the hit supense-thriller The Silence Of The Lambs, Dr Hannibal Lecter
was a brilliant psychiatrist in the employ of the FBI. His task: To help
an unusually gifted criminal profiler, Will Graham, who is haunted by
his ability to empathise with serial killers.

Unknown to Graham, Lecter also has a particular insight into these
horrible crimes and the psychopaths who commit them. For he is the most
gifted killer of them all.

Hannibal is the new television thriller from Bryan Fuller, the creative
force behind Pushing Daisies, Wonderfalls and Dead Like Me.

The series stars Mads Mikkelsen as Hannibal, Hugh Dancy as Graham and
Laurence Fishburne as Jack Crawford, the head of the FBI’s Behavioral
Science Unit.

Dancy, a British actor, is seen on screen (Black Hawk Down, 2001 among
others), stage (BBC’s Madame Bovary in 2000) and television. He recently
starred in Adam, playing the title role of a young man with Asperger’s
syndrome struggling to survive in New York City. The movie premiered at
the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and was awarded the Alfred P. Sloan
Feature Film Prize.

Dancy says his character, Graham, is intense, riddled with nervous
ticks, open to “the darker stuff “ and averse to being analysed.

“He walks into a room with anybody who’s like a psychiatrist and they
immediately start rubbing their hands together. Oh, great, here comes my
next paper, you know. And he feels that coming a mile off. So he shuts
down. That I think is why he’s so initially hostile towards Hannibal,
because he rightly thinks that Jack has brought in some other expert to
profile him.

“It’s a dark role, but fascinating. It’s a rich character with lots to
explore. The hardest part of playing Will is that he’s not a social
person, quite shut off and rude. That’s also the most interesting thing
about him,” he says in a phone interview.

Dancy was hooked after reading the first episode, and went on to read
the Thomas Harris novels on Lecter. He thinks Fuller’s vision for the
series is fascinating because he has envisioned the story for even up to
five seasons.

“I was intrigued with Will after reading the first episode. I asked
Fuller about the character and he described to me up to four or five
seasons. It’s a very full vision of what he wants to do. Each season
takes a different twist and turn, offering me the opportunity to stay
interested. So yeah, I would stay on for that long.”

Graham, as imagined first by Harris and then by Fuller, is a very complete character.

“The question that hangs over Will is how much, how intrinsic a part of
him is this violence that he can so readily access? Because he can
empathise with these killers but at the same time he tries to preserve
judgment over them. And he still has a very highly developed sense of
right and wrong,” says Dancy.

“But he can oddly enough put that to one side entirely in the process
of jumping into their heads. The very frightening question is which part
of him is more real? And it’s also the fault line in Will that Hannibal
spots immediately and sets out not to, I think, manipulate. He wants to
push Will closer to what he feels is the truth. He’s dabbling with
Will’s brain. Yet, Will is someone he can walk with in life. The
question is how much do they have in common.”

Hannibal is a dark TV show with lots of gore and murder. Dancy
describes it as “psychologically interesting, even cerebral and the
daddy of crime shows” on the telly today.

“Viewers will see something quite unique, a visual darkness and a
richness you don’t normally see. The purpose of the violence in the
show, I think, is that it casts light on who the characters are. And I
think the horror comes from the area in their minds that we’re pushed
into as the audience,” he explains in a release.

“Every time we’re approaching one of those sequences, or a sequence
over in the morgue, you know, forensic sequence, I try to approach that
from the point of view of why is that here in our story? You know, what
is this going to teach us about these characters? And, again, what is
the cost of it, particularly to Will?”

Meals are very much a part of the show. While Hannibal indulges in
“gourmet” fare such as frontal lobes, Dancy says he’s also an
adventurous person.

“The weirdest thing I’d eaten was in Sarawak. I was filming at night in
the forest and a man pulled me over, picked something off a branch and
cooked it with his lighter. It crackled. It was a huge bug. It was quite
tasty. Like a nice shrimp.”

What Dancy must have eaten is probably a cicada because I’ve eaten them
too in Miri, Sarawak. They are low in fat and high in protein. Dancy
was in Sarawak to film The Sleeping Dictionary opposite Jessica Alba
(released in 2003).

Early reviews of Hannibal have billed Graham as the most watchable
character so far, with his social ineptness and a cunning that allows
him to make the dots in a case.

“Well it’s nice to be called that. I think it’s because audiences enter
the show through Will with the first few episodes. Further in the
season, it’s more of a duet with Hannibal (Lecter). There are two
distinct worlds in the show — the world of the FBI and the crimes, and
the work of Hannibal and his mind. Will is in both, so I have a lot to
do.”

He adds that all 13 episodes have been filmed for the first season. “I
suspect people will engage in it with the same enthusiasm as we have.”

3 comments:

Thanks for that. I'm very interested in the 'five season plan', considering I always assumed Graham would leave after S4 (Red Dragon). Can't wait for it to be a duet and see how much they decide to torture my human pincushion.

On the one hand, I love Will, so if they bring him back into the narrative when Hannibal escapes and we get to see free!Hannibal-Will and Clarice-Will dynamics, I'd be thrilled.

On the other hand.... Will Graham is a human pincushion and if they go with Thomas Harris' book ending, Will is disfigured, loses his family and ends up a drunk. There's a limit to how much torture one character can take, before you wonder why they don't just put a bullet in their brains and end their suffering.

If Jack or the FBI come looking for Will after book ending of 'Red Dragon' in order to catch Hannibal? I sort of want him to grab his gun and threaten to shoot them all (especially Jack). And while being disfigured, alone and a drunk are a terrible fate, I shudder to think what Hannibal would have in mind, if Will came after him.